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<title>FastBit Users Guide</title>
<meta name="dc:creator" content="Kesheng Wu">
<meta name="KEYWORDS" content="FastBit, bitmap index, data warehouse,
efficient query processing, Open Source, LGPL, free download, users guide,
IBIS, WAH compression, Word-Aligned Hybrid, Wu">
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<td class=other><A href="http://crd.lbl.gov/%7Ekewu/fastbit/">FastBit Front Page</A></td>
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<td class=current><A href="index.html">Software Documentation</A></td>
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<B>Organization</B>: <A HREF="http://www.lbl.gov/">LBNL</A> &raquo;
<A HREF="http://crd.lbl.gov/">CRD</A> &raquo;
<A HREF="http://sdm.lbl.gov/">SDM</A> &raquo;
<A HREF="http://crd.lbl.gov/%7Ekewu/fastbit">FastBit</A> &raquo;
Documentation </p>

<H1>FastBit Users Guide</H1>

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<P>
This package implements a number of different bitmap indexes compressed
with Word-Aligned Hybrid code.  These indexes differ in their bitmap
encoding methods and binning options.  The basic bitmap index compressed
with WAH has been shown to <A
HREF="http://crd.lbl.gov/%7Ekewu/ps/LBNL-49626.html">answer one-dimensional
queries in time that is proportional to the number of hits in
theory</A>. In a number of performance measurements, WAH compressed
indexes were found to be much more efficient than other indexes <A
HREF="http://crd.lbl.gov/%7Ekewu/ps/LBNL-48975.html">[CIKM 2001]</A> <A
HREF="http://crd.lbl.gov/%7Ekewu/ps/LBNL-49627.html">[SSDBM 2002]</A> <A
HREF="http://crd.lbl.gov/%7Ekewu/ps/LBNL-51791.html">[DOLAP
2002]</A>. One of the crucial step in achieving these efficiency is to
be able to perform bitwise OR operations on a large compressed bitmaps
efficiently without decompression <A
HREF="http://crd.lbl.gov/%7Ekewu/ps/LBNL-54673.html">[VLDB
2004]</A>. Numerous other bitmap encodings and binning strategies are
implemented in this software package, please refer to <A
HREF="indexSpec.html">indexSpec.html</A> for descriptions on how to
access these indexes and refer to our <A
HREF="http://crd.lbl.gov/%7Ekewu/fastbit/publications.html">publications</A> for
extensive studies on these methods.  FastBit was primarily developed to
test these techniques for improving compressed bitmap indexes.  Even
though, it has grown to include a small number other useful data
analysis functions, its primary strength is still in having a diversity
of efficient compressed bitmap indexes.</P>

<div class=insert id=right>
<H4>List of Documents</H4>
<ul>
<li><A HREF="quickstart.html">Quick Start</A></li>
<li><A HREF="dataLoading.html">Loading data</A></li>
<li><A HREF="ibisCommandLine.html">Ibis command line tool</A></li>
<li><A HREF="indexSpec.html">Index Specification</A></li>
<li><A HREF="rara.html">Example client code</A></li>
<li><A HREF="dataDistributions.html">Compute data distribution</A></li>
<li><A HREF="html/index.html">Reference Guide</A>
</ul>

<H4>About the name</H4>
<p>
The name IBIS was used by John because it was the only reasonably short
English word that contains the abbreviation BI (for Bitmap Index).
Moreover, it is the name
of <A HREF="http://www.astrocape.org.za/Rondevlei/Ibis_Sacred10876pa.jpg">an
attractive bird</A>
and <A HREF="http://www.marvelfamily.com/WhosWho/whoswho.asp?castid=88">a
comic book superhero</A>.  However, most people don't associate it with any
thing of speed or power.  We eventually settled on the name FastBit
following a suggestion from Arie, because it is much more direct in
expressing the notion of speed.  However, by that time, a significant
amount of code has been written in the name space of
<code>ibis</code>, so the name IBIS is stuck.
</p><p>
A reasonable way to harmonize the two names is to say that the current
version of FastBit is code named IBIS, where IBIS is the abbreviation of
an Implementation of Bitmap Indexing System or Ibis Bitmap Indexing
System.
</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><B>PS</B>:  The following is the face of a
  more recent rendition of
<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibis_the_Invincible">Ibis</A> in
"The Helmet of Fate: Ibis the Invincible" (2007).<br>

<A HREF="http://www.dccomics.com/media/desktop_patterns/The_Helmet_of_Fate_Ibis_the_Invincible_1600x1200.jpg"><img src="http://crd.lbl.gov/%7Ekewu/gif/SuperheroIbis.gif" width=125 height=125 border=0 alt="Ibis the invincible"></A>
</p>
</div>

<H2>Pages in This Directory</H2>
Here is a brief outline of documents available in this directory.
<DL>

<DT> 1 <a HREF="quickstart.html">quickstart.html</A>

<DD> The page <A HREF="quickstart.html">quickstart.html</A> contains a
set of brief intructions for a number of tasks.  This is a good starting
point if you are unfamiliar with FastBit software.  It also has pointers
to other documents for finding more information about each task.

<DT> 2 <a HREF="dataLoading.html">dataLoading.html</A>

<DD> The page <A HREF="dataLoading.html">dataLoading.html</A> describes
the structure of FastBit data organization in detail.  It also explains
how to combine smaller datasets into larger ones for better query
performance.  
<A HREF="http://crd.lbl.gov/%7Ekewu/fastbit/data/samples.html">Two sets of
  sample data are available on line along with some instructions on how
  to use them</A>.

<DT> 3 <a HREF="ibisCommandLine.html">ibisCommandLine.html</A>

<DD> The page <A HREF="ibisCommandLine.html">ibisCommandLine.html</A>
describes the options of <code>ibis</code> command line tool.  This is a
useful command line tool for users who don't wish to write their own
program to use FastBit indexing functions.

<DT> 4 <a HREF="indexSpec.html">indexSpec.html</A>

<DD> The page <A HREF="indexSpec.html">indexSpec.html</A> describes the
index specification string and how to alter the indexes built by FastBit
functions.  It also contains a set of recommendations on what options to
use given certain data and query work loads.

<DT> 5 <A HREF="http://crd.lbl.gov/%7Ekewu/fastbit/doc/html/index.html">FastBit Reference Guide</A>

<DD> This is a comprehensive <A HREF="html/index.html">reference
guide</a> of all classes and functions of FastBit.  It is generated by
Doxygen.  To generate it from the current version of source code,
execute <code>make docs</code> from the top level directory of the
source code.

</DL>

<p>Please join the <A
HREF="https://hpcrdm.lbl.gov/mailman/listinfo/fastbit-users">FastBit
mailing list</A> to post your questions and share your experience.
The mailing list is also <A
HREF="https://hpcrdm.lbl.gov/pipermail/fastbit-users/">archived on
line</A>.</p>

<hr align=left width=25%>
<H4>List of Documents</H4>
<ul>
<li><A HREF="quickstart.html">Quick Start</A></li>
<li><A HREF="dataLoading.html">Loading data</A></li>
<li><A HREF="ibisCommandLine.html">Ibis command line tool</A></li>
<li><A HREF="indexSpec.html">Index Specification</A></li>
<li><A HREF="rara.html">Example client code</A></li>
<li><A HREF="dataDistributions.html">Compute data distribution</A></li>
<li><A HREF="html/index.html">Reference Guide</A>
 [<A HREF="refman.pdf">in a single PDF file</A>]:
<ul>
<li><A HREF="html/table_8h.html">ibis::table</A>,</li>
<li><A HREF="html/part_8h.html">ibis::part</A>,</li>
<li><A HREF="html/query_8h.html">ibis::query</A>,</li>
<li><A HREF="html/index_8h.html">ibis::index</A></li>
</ul></li>
</ul>

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